Tournament Preparation by Ray “Blue” Scully

The tournament bass fishing season is fast approaching, are you prepared? Have you been a busy little beaver during this long cold winter, readying yourself for what lies ahead? Well, if you’re a died in the wool bass fishing fanatic like I am, you had better be. In this world of instant everything you can’t afford to take anything for granted. Your can bet your last senko your competitors sure won’t. I invite you to buckle up and take a seat, tournament preparation 101 starts now.

Just what do I mean by preparation? I consider myself prepared when I have all the information I can possibly acquire on each and every tournament I will be fishing this coming season. I rely heavily on a fishing ledger I have kept since I began tournament fishing some 20 years ago. It served me well then and it continues to provide me with important dates, notes, tips and tidbits of vital information critical to my tournament success. For want of a better name, it’s my personal “history book” of tournament fishing. If you don’t have one of these handy little books, I suggest you get one.

Once you have your tournament schedule for the year in front of you, you’re ready to begin your preparation. (Step #1) Make sure you have good maps of the lakes and rivers you will be fishing. I have at least one map of every lake I have ever fished. Some of these such as the “Fishing Hot Spots” series are absolutely wonderful; others are nothing more than a copy of a hand drawn map. Either way, there simply is no substitute for having a map of the lakes you will be fishing. Period!

There are some lakes that I fish on a regular basis that I have at least two and sometime three maps of. Why you ask? Simple really. I may have one just for spring, one for summer and another for the fall. This allows me to keep selected pertinent information on each lake in its proper context. For instance, when I am out pre-fishing or entering my observations and findings from a particular tournament I may have fished, I can post the results on a map coinciding with a particular season. I had a few old maps that were marked up so badly they were difficult to read and even more difficult to add information to.

Learning how to post information onto your maps will be extremely helpful in allowing you to zero in on a particular sweet spot. A word of advice before I go on: Never mark up your map while you’re ON the water. Keep a piece of graph paper handy and make all your notations and findings on that piece of graph paper. You can then transfer the information to your map in the parking lot, or at home. This will help keep your maps from looking like a Zippy the Chimp drawing. Now, let me give you an example of what I mean by a sweet spot.

There are six (six pack of info) valuable pieces of information I will enter on my maps. 1) Structure located 2) Cover found and type 3) Size of fish caught 4) The depth they were caught at 5) Time they were caught and 6) Landmarks for pinpointing a potential spot. For the sake of the discussion lets say I have found a ledge in 18 feet of water that breaks into 25 feet. About ten feet above the ledge I locate a distinct weed line that grows up to within 4 foot of the surface. I catch two fish, one of which is over three pounds. I check my watch and note the time. I post all of what I have found on the map with one exception. I only list the one three pound fish. That’s a sweet spot. I post this as a red dot on my map. If a certain area yields a quality fish, it will usually do so on a fairly consistent basis.

After a while (a few years actually) you will begin to notice that your map, hopefully, has a number of spots with a red dot marked on it, maybe a few with more than one. When you begin to build your tournament game plan a look at your maps will tell you where you need to fish and when. I have areas marked on my maps that are what I consider numbers spots, but day in and day out I will concentrate only on those areas highlighted with a red dot. Remember to factor in your seasonal patterns when building a game plan. That’s why I like to keep three “seasonal” maps of the lakes I fish most often. Consider it building your road map to success.

Networking (Step#2). We now live in the age of the Internet, the information highway. There is a ton of information out there that can be useful to you as a tournament fisherman. However, I would much rather rely on the personal contacts I have made over the years to add to what I already know about a particular body of water. When I began competitive bass fishing, I began cultivating friendships with fisherman who belonged to other clubs. In effect I set up my own information highway. Quite often they too had friends in other clubs who they were networking with. That highway has since become an interstate.

The information you exchange with friends must be kept and treated with respect. Never pass on information you have obtained from another source without their approval. Break that cardinal rule and your interstate will become a dirt road to palookaville. When you are exchanging information its counter productive, in my opinion, to ask for spots or particular baits and patterns. What you should be concerned with are the meat and potatoes. Things like type of cover, prevalent form of vegetation, water clarity, and the productive depths for the dates you plan on fishing the venue.

Tackle stores are wonderful sources of information. However, I tend to take what a tackle store might tell me with a grain of salt. For the most part, they will tell you what you want to hear. More often than not, you’re going to get their “B Shtick”. If I can, I like to sniff around when a tournament is weighing-in. I never ask the winners what they did, hell, they would rather tell you the combination to their wall safe then how they caught their fish. Instead, I like to talk to the guys who caught only few fish. These guys usually are more than happy to tell you just what it was they were doing. If you pay close attention, there usually will be a tidbit or two of information you can file away in your “history book”.

Being observant around a weigh-in site can also prove quite rewarding. Keep and eye on the live well water as it drains from a competitors boat. Are there crawfish parts mixed in? If so, is there a color tip off? Many of the fishermen I know will stow their rods and reels before they pull their boats. However, many of them will not clean the grass from the trolling motor or off their front decks. This can tip you off to where they may have caught their fish. I have a close friend who swears he can tell what type of cover the bass were using just by looking at them. I don’t happen to be quite THAT observant.

All right now….you have your maps, you have your history book, you have a better than fair idea what your game plan might be well in advance of the actual tournament. This will give you plenty of time to tinker with that plan, tweaking it here and there when the situation dictates. When you have been doing this for a few years you will notice JUST how important seasonal patterns are to your fishing success. However, instead of reading about it in a magazine article, it will be there in front of you to see “up close and personal”. When that light goes off in your brain the illumination can be blinding.

Equipment (Step #3). Preparing your equipment for the grind of a long tournament season is absolutely critical to your overall success. Loose just a single fish due to poor equipment maintenance and your season could be ruined. Believe me, I learned this lesson the hard way. I like to start with my rods, checking all the guides, making sure there are no weak spots, or hairline cracks. It’s important to check the reel seats as well for loose or shifting connections. Now apply pressure to the rod by placing the tip against the ceiling and look for stress cracks in the rods protective coating. If you find one with these cracks, retire it. Better yet, sell it at your clubs swap shop….lol

When it comes to reel maintenance yearly service by some one who knows what they are doing is very important. You can do it yourself if so inclined. However, if you are unsure or unfamiliar with the reels techs and specs I would recommend you bring it or send it to an authorized dealer. There is nothing more disturbing than having a few parts lying on the workbench AFTER you have reassembled a fishing reel. That’s what they refer to in the business as “home cooking” and that’s going to cost you when someone else has to correct the mess you have left them with. Lubricating all visible moving parts should be done periodically through out the year.

Whatever premium line you use, make sure it’s stored at room temperature and out of direct light, luminous or natural. I don’t use the new high-tech lines that are available on the market today, just monofilament, so I can’t comment on their storage or usefulness. Contrary to what most anglers do, I wont remove all line at the end of the fishing season and replace it with new line sometime over the winter. I prefer to wait till the day before the first tournament to change to new line. This way I can be sure that nothing has happened to the line in the interval. It also give me the opportunity to check the drag, making sure they are set the way I like them…LOCKED UP TIGHT.

Tackle & Baits (Step 4) Once I have looked over the tournament schedule and consulted the “history book”, I will perform a tackle & bait inventory. All of us have tons of tackle and baits, in fact I have been on a few boats where there was so much of it on board it was surprising that the boat didn’t sink. Try keeping it simple; ordering only the baits you KNOW you will need to be successful. If you have been diligent you will know what baits those are, they will be listed in your “history book”. While I could write reams about baits and their importance in the overall scheme of things, I will save that for a future article.

Terminal tackle in particular should be addressed during the winter months as well. Look at your hooks, are they rusted or loosing shape? If so, don’t cut corners trying to save a few pennies throw them out or utilize them as I do. I use all my old hooks, jigs, etc during my pre-fish, saving the ‘go to tackle” for tournament day.
Check and make sure that the hooks on all you crankbaits are still sharp and ready for the job at hand, if not replace them. Get rid of all the old worm weights you have lying around seemingly everywhere….you know the ones…right, I thought so.

If you have tackle that can’t be used again…get rid of it. The same holds true for everything you have in your tackle box. If you cant use it anymore….out it goes.. When are you going to need that melted piece of worm now fused to the bottom of you Plano? Nice color though now that it has blended with one of your Excalibur Pop-R’s. Organization can have a trickle down effect that lends itself quite nicely to success on a larger scale. In closing let me say once again….be prepared. I borrowed that from the Boy Scout Hand Book. Don’t be late for your next class…. KEEPING IT SIMPLE